2 hours ago
3
Salman Shahid travels often betwixt Srinagar, the biggest metropolis successful Indian-administered Kashmir, and New Delhi. He runs Rise, a backstage coaching centre for students aspiring to articulation the Indian Institutes of Technology – the country’s premier engineering schools – successful Srinagar, but his household is based successful New Delhi.
Flying helps him prevention time. But increasingly, helium conscionable cannot spend it.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Shahid says, a one-way formation from Srinagar to New Delhi would outgo him astir 3,300 rupees ($37.20) connected average. “Now, the aforesaid summons is implicit 5,000 rupees ($56), and that, too, with precise constricted clip options,” helium points out.
This 50 percent surge successful airfare has importantly affected his question routine. “I don’t question that often now,” helium says. “Earlier, I would marque astatine slightest 4 round-trips a month. Now, it’s travel down to conscionable two.”
He recalls erstwhile booking a summons for conscionable 1,700 rupees ($19) connected Vistara, a home airliner, during a merchantability successful 2019. “That benignant of pricing present feels similar a dream,” helium says, adding that helium struggles to recognize however airfare has escalated truthful sharply successful specified a abbreviated period.
He is not alone.
According to a study published past November by Airports Council International (ACI), a planetary commercialized relation representing much than 2,000 airports successful much than 180 countries, India saw a 43 percent emergence successful home airfares successful the archetypal fractional of 2024, compared with 2019, the second-highest successful the Asia Pacific and West Asia regions aft Vietnam.
International fares besides roseate by 16 percent. India was 3rd successful this category. A study representing 617 airports successful the Asia Pacific and West Asia regions, conducted by ACI successful concern with Flare Aviation Consulting, a absorption consulting boutique specialised successful the aviation and airports sector, attributes this surge to precocious demand, constricted contention connected immoderate routes, and a 38 percent spike successful aviation turbine substance (ATF) costs since 2019.
Prices roseate from 68,050 rupees ($759) per kilolitre successful cities similar Delhi successful January 2019 to 93,766 rupees ($1,046) per kilolitre successful October 2025. Airlines are besides recovering pandemic-era losses, further pushing fares up.
And adjacent though determination is nary broad survey capturing fare trends successful 2025, yet, experts accidental prices person continued to emergence passim the year.
“Despite the immense surge already, airfares aren’t coming down and are lone going up,” said Vandana Singh, the chairperson of the Aviation Cargo Federation of Aviation Industry successful India (FAII), a government-recognised assemblage that promotes India’s aviation sector.
“The relentless summation successful airfare does not bespeak good connected the accessibility of aviation successful India,” Singh added, cautioning that the mediate and economically weaker sections of nine whitethorn soon find themselves excluded from the aerial question scenery altogether.
Sajad Ismail Sofi, a question agent, astatine his bureau successful Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir [Aatif Ammad/Al Jazeera]‘Hollow catchphrase’
In October 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched what his authorities has called the UDAN strategy – “Udan” means “flight” successful Hindi, but the acronym stands for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (Let the Common Citizen Fly). The stated purpose of the strategy was to dramatically grow India’s aviation infrastructure, and unfastened up dozens of caller routes to marque aerial question accessible to lower-income Indians and radical successful smaller towns and cities.
While flagging disconnected the archetypal formation nether the strategy successful April 2017, Modi said, “I privation to spot radical who deterioration hawai chappals [flip-flops] flying successful a hawai jahaaz [aeroplane].”
His comments efficaciously became a slogan for the campaign, touted arsenic the government’s bid to marque flying affordable and accessible for millions of radical from small-town India, galore of whom cannot adjacent spend shoes.
But that slogan present carries a tinge of irony, Singh said.
“With fares escalating consistently implicit the past fewer years, this inspiring slogan present risks becoming a hollow catchphrase alternatively than a lived reality.”
Under the Modi government, India has so witnessed a accelerated enlargement successful the fig of cities and towns connected by air, with airports much than doubling from 74 successful 2014, erstwhile Modi came to power, to 157 successful 2024.
But the numbers disguise a deeper situation that afflicts Indian aviation, experts say. Because the fig of flights and routes has gone up, the full measurement of travellers successful India has remained high, adjacent if soaring prices mean that galore idiosyncratic passengers are reducing aerial travel.
The state is the world’s third-largest home aviation market, and witnessed a 15 percent summation successful aerial passengers, year-on-year, successful the 2024 fiscal year, according to authorities figures.
Still, signs of turbulence are visible, adjacent successful the data. Domestic aerial postulation dipped to 12.6 cardinal passengers successful July 2025, compared with 13.1 cardinal successful June 2025. The numbers recovered successful August to 13.2 million, but past dipped again successful September (12.6 million), earlier rising successful October to 14.3 cardinal passengers.
Rohit Kumar, an aviation economist and a module subordinate astatine Rajiv Gandhi National Aviation University, said that portion rider numbers person not fallen, “the emergence successful fares has softly pushed the little and lower-middle classes retired of the skies”. New airports, much routes, and upper-middle-class travellers, who worth clip implicit cost, are continuing to support full rider numbers up.
Kumar added that the distant moving civilization that galore exertion and service-driven industries successful India person continued to clasp since the pandemic has allowed employees to question much often than before. This has boosted occasional aerial question among higher-income professionals, helium said.
However, contempt year-on-year growth, the assemblage remains profoundly unequal. India’s aviation sector, Kumar cautioned, is being carried by a small, affluent section, portion the immense bulk – emerging flyers that the UDAN strategy was meant to service – are progressively being near behind.
Singh of the FAII was adjacent much blunt.
“The precise radical the [Modi] slogan referred to, those who deterioration chappals, are present being priced retired of the skies,” she said.
An craft of India’s SpiceJet airlines takes disconnected successful Mumbai, India, Sunday, August 7, 2022 [Rafiq Maqbool/AP]‘Monopolistic trends’
More routes are not the lone origin allowing airlines to support raising fares, adjacent if they are pricing retired galore passengers. They are besides helped by shrinking competition.
In caller years, respective large airlines person unopen down, portion others person merged aft acquisitions.
Go First, which erstwhile held much than 10 percent of India’s home and planetary market, with 52 aircraft, ceased operations successful May 2023 aft filing for bankruptcy. Jet Airways, with a 21 percent market share and 124 craft astatine its 2016 peak, halted operations successful 2019.
SpiceJet teetered connected the borderline of insolvency, particularly betwixt 2022 and 2024, owed to mounting debt, ineligible issues, and grounded aircraft. In July 2022, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s aviation regulator, chopped SpiceJet operations by 50 percent. The DGCA cited “poor interior information oversight and inadequate attraction actions”. SpiceJet besides faced important delays, with a reported on-time show (OTP) of 54.8 percent successful January 2025, making it the slightest punctual hose among large carriers astatine the time.
Defaults connected lease payments besides led to craft repossessions, shrinking SpiceJet’s fleet from 118 successful 2019 to conscionable 28 operational planes by January 2025.
“The back-to-back shutdown of airlines successful India severely impacted aerial travel, paving the mode for monopolistic trends,” said Singh. With less players successful the skies, ascendant airlines tin dictate prices and rise them astatine their discretion, she added.
In different large shake-up, Air India, India’s lone nationalist assemblage airline, was officially privatised successful January 2022, erstwhile the Tata Group took implicit afloat ownership.
Following this, Vistara, an hose already jointly owned by Tata and Singapore Airlines, was merged with Air India successful November 2024. The merger raised concerns and faced beardown absorption from critics, including commercialized unions and absorption parties, who feared that the consolidation of Air India, Vistara, and AirAsia India – different Tata Group subsidiary besides merged with the different 2 – would pb to an aviation oligopoly, reducing contention and user prime successful the Indian market.
Zuhaib Rashid, an economics and probe subordinate astatine the Isaac Centre for Public Policy, New Delhi, said the merger handed implicit power of India’s skies to conscionable 2 backstage players, posing a superior menace to competition.
The lone different large aviation subordinate successful India contiguous is Indigo, which has 61 percent marketplace share. Together, IndiGo and Air India present power 91 percent of India’s hose market.
Rashid argued that, had the authorities retained a involvement successful Air India, it could person ensured fare regulation. “Fully privatising airlines has reduced authorities power implicit pricing, and has allowed backstage players to predominate successful a state wherever aerial question remains a luxury,” helium added.
Their dominance of the marketplace besides allows Air India and Indigo to jack up prices dramatically during highest question seasons oregon emergencies, circuit operators and experts say, citing 2 caller examples.
Sajad Ismail Sofi, a Srinagar-based aerial question agent, pointed to the aftermath of the deadly April onslaught connected tourists successful Pahalgam, a fashionable edifice municipality successful Indian-administered Kashmir, successful which 26 civilians were killed. As tourists successful different parts of Kashmir scrambled to permission the region, one-way summons prices from Srinagar to different parts of India skyrocketed from 5,000 rupees ($56) to astir 12,000 rupees ($135).
After airlines faced large disapproval and accusations of profiteering from a nationalist crisis, prices came down.
Earlier successful the year, Singh from the FAII recalled, one-way airfares from India’s fiscal capital, Mumbai, to the temple municipality of Prayagraj soared to 50,000 rupees ($564) – much costly than flights to Paris – during the Mahakumbh Mela, 1 of Hinduism’s astir ineffable events successful which devotees instrumentality dips successful the Ganga river. The authorities yet stepped successful to unit airlines to curb prices. However, Singh said that astir pilgrims had already bought their tickets by then.
Al Jazeera has sought responses from Indigo and Air India to the disapproval and allegations of utilizing their marketplace dominance to complaint exorbitant rates. Neither hose has responded.
An Air India craft stands astatine the Indira Gandhi airdrome successful New Delhi, India connected May 11, 2012 [Mustafa Quraishi/ AP Photo]Higher taxes adding to the burden
Experts constituent retired that airlines unsocial are not liable for the rising fares. India’s precocious aviation taxes are a cardinal origin too.
The state imposes the highest taxes connected aviation turbine substance (ATF) successful Asia, which relationship for 45 percent of aerial summons prices. By mid-2024, pitchy substance prices successful cities similar Delhi and Mumbai were astir 60 percent higher than successful planetary hubs similar Dubai, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur, mostly owed to value-added taxes (VAT), cardinal excise duties and further cesses.
Passengers are besides charged, arsenic portion of their tickets, a idiosyncratic improvement fee, ranging from 150 rupees ($1.7) to 400 rupees ($4.5) depending connected the airport; a rider work interest of astir 150 rupees ($1.7); an aviation information interest of 200 rupees ($2.3) per passenger; a terminal interest of 100 rupees ($1.2); and a determination connectivity complaint betwixt 50 rupees ($0.6) and 100 rupees ($1.2) per passenger. Each of these amounts is small, but together, they adhd up. And they bash not spell to the airline, but to the airdrome oregon the government.
In June, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents much than 350 airlines globally, called for greater clarity successful India’s taxation system, arguing that it was excessively complex.
Amjad Ali, a question relation from New Delhi, said helium had been successful the aerial ticketing concern since 2005, and had ne'er witnessed a crisp emergence successful airfares until 2020. “Fares utilized to summation gradually, but since 2020, they person changeable up rapidly,” helium said.
Ali usually books tickets connected routes similar Delhi–Mumbai, Delhi–Patna, and Delhi–Purnea. Patna and Purnea are cities successful the eastbound Indian authorities of Bihar.
He said that caller airports, specified arsenic Purnea, person brought successful much passengers owed to the instauration of caller routes. Before the pandemic, a Mumbai–Delhi ticket, booked good successful advance, utilized to outgo astir 3,800 rupees ($43), but now, it is hard to find 1 beneath 6,000 rupees ($68) for the aforesaid journey.
Meanwhile, airlines person besides started cutting discounts they utilized to connection to immoderate sections of flyers. Previously, Air India offered a 50 percent concession connected the basal fare for home pupil travel, but aft privatisation, this was reduced to lone 10 percent.
The result, Ali said, is simply a noticeable diminution successful pupil travellers. “We seldom spot students flying these days,” helium said.
Ultimately, Singh from the FAII said, the manufacture was shooting itself successful the ft by making flying unaffordable for millions of Indians.
“If we privation aerial question to go genuinely accessible to a larger conception of the population, peculiarly those with constricted fiscal means, the authorities and aviation stakeholders indispensable enactment towards reducing these taxes and surcharges,” she said.
Until then, a level thrust volition stay a formation of fancy for astir of India’s 1.4 cardinal people.
English (US) ·